


that would not be the end

by mybelovedcheshire



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Magic AU, Mention of alcohol, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 19:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybelovedcheshire/pseuds/mybelovedcheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire has a gift. For as long as he can remember, he's been able to encourage those around him to do whatever he wants simply by singing -- but there is a downside. If he uses his gift too much or too forcefully on one person, he risks taking away their will forever. It's dangerous, and it's powerful, and he knows that and tries to use it as little as possible. But how could he sit by when his friends' safety is at stake? </p><p>Earlier stories (with some explanation) from this 'verse can be found <a href="http://mbcwriting.tumblr.com/tagged/v:-singing">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that would not be the end

The third time Courfeyrac rubbed his eyes, Combeferre called an end to the meeting. Enjolras frowned, but even he wouldn’t defy Combeferre when the engineering student put his foot down.

They gathered up the maps and letters and leaflets they had strewn across the table. Feuilly was the first to slip out, hurrying down the back staircase as his friends cleaned up. They didn’t begrudge him that. As eager as he was to stay, he didn’t share the others’ luxury of being able to sleep until noon.

Courfeyrac was practically snoring in the corner.  
Combeferre murmured to Enjolras as he doused a candle. “I’ll make sure he gets home.”

Enjolras didn’t question it.

Apart from they three, the only other member of their little society who was still present was Grantaire — who looked quite like he was considering joining Courfeyrac. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d just stayed at Musain over night, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. He was rolling his coat into a pillow as Feuilly sprinted back up the stairs.

In a rough whisper, he warned them: “There’s a guardsmen on the corner, and two at the storefront.”

Grantaire sat up, and Courfeyrac’s eyes popped open.

Combeferre stopped before he could extinguish the last candle. Light from the streetlamp dripped in from the window, but it hardly made a difference in that narrow little room.

“You’re sure?” Enjolras asked. Feuilly nodded.

“I saw the one at the corner first— he’s in plain clothes, and I don’t think he was looking for me.”

In his frayed and held-together-by-darning jacket, Feuilly looked like any other street urchin — not the rabble-rowsing schoolboys the guardsmen had been spying on for months now.

“And the ones at the front?” Courfeyrac asked. Combeferre and Enjolras relit a candle each, and both turned towards the dark fireplace.

“In full uniform,” Feuilly answered. Concern swept across Courfeyrac’s tired features.

“What are you doing?” Grantaire asked as Combeferre and Enjolras coaxed the dry ashes to life.

Combeferre stood up to grab a handful of letters from the table. “If we’re caught with any of this, we’ll be arrested. And even if they let us go, they’ll come up to search.”

Grantaire glanced at the back door where Feuilly had stationed himself.

Enjolras started feeding paper to the growing flame.

“Wait—” Grantaire insisted. All eyes turned to him. “Let me go.” He scooped up a bottle from the table. “I can distract them.”

Enjolras paused, but Combeferre smiled softly. “They’ll take you to jail.”

“For drunkenness?” Grantaire asked, taking a quick swig. “They can’t hold me for that.”

“They’ll suspect—”

Grantaire pulled his hat on askew. “I’m not one of you.”

Except for the soft crackle of the fire, the room was silent.

“I’ll get in a scuffle with the man at the back and draw the guardsmen at the front. They expect you to come out this way, so you won’t be seen if you slip out through the main door. Leave the candles burning and they’ll never notice. Feuilly can send a message to Mére to come in early and deal with them on his way home.”

Again, no one replied.

Grantaire held his hands out at his sides in a gesture of resignation. “It won’t win your war, but it’ll spare your precious letters.”

“Someone will still have to carry them,” Courfeyrac commented, stepping between Grantaire and Enjolras to dispel the growing tension. Only Grantaire could simultaneously offer to save them while insulting everything they held dear.

“I will,” Enjolras answered.

“You shouldn’t,” Combeferre murmured.

“I should,” Courfeyrac finished. “Apart from Grantaire, I live nearest. Feuilly would be less noticeable, but he has to go to Mére’s house. Enjolras shouldn’t do it, so that leaves me.”

Grantaire snorted. Trust those three to cling to logic and planning even now when their extensive plans were in jeopardy. “It doesn’t matter because you’ll all be fine, but someone just shove them in your trousers and all of you get to the café.” He turned towards the back staircase, bottle still in hand.

Enjolras called out. His bright eyes were unsurprisingly, and suspiciously narrowed. “You’re very sure.”

Grantaire didn’t turn around. “I’m very drunk,” he answered, and thumped down the steps.

Enjolras watched him disappear while Courfeyrac did exactly as Grantaire suggested and stuffed folded letters into his pants, with Combeferre’s assistance. Feuilly had silently moved into the main room of the café and was spying on the uniformed guardsmen from behind the counter. If Grantaire succeeded, he would signal to the others to follow.

But Enjolras had an alternative plan. He wasn’t in the habit of trusting Grantaire — he’d done it once before, to his regret. He stepped closer to the staircase, positive that he heard a soft humming coming from the unseen cynic below.

To Combeferre and Courfeyrac, he whispered. “Go after Feuilly. I’m going out this way.”

Combeferre looked up sharply. “What for?”

“It’s nonsense for four of us to go out the front and only one to go out the back,” Enjolras replied. “It’ll take two at most to subdue Grantaire — but if there are two of us, there’s no chance that one of the guards at the front will stay at his post.”

“Enjolras.” Combeferre’s tone was uncharacteristically worried.

“Be safe,” Enjolras told him. “All of you.”

He stepped onto the spiral staircase, searching the dark alley for Grantaire as he descended.

Grantaire was easy to find. The smell of alcohol lingered where he’d walked, away down the street towards the corner where the guardsman-spy was prowling. And if that hadn’t been enough — he was singing.

It was a bawdy tune that Enjolras regrettably recognised. Little Gavroche sang it constantly — Grantaire had probably learned it from him. But it was just the kind of crude, unconcerned thing that any drunk without a thought in his head or a care in the world would chant while struggling to find his way home. The further he got from Musain, the louder his voice became.

Enjolras followed at a distance, watching him feign a stumble when he was within sight of the guard. If he hadn’t been so intimately acquainted with Grantaire at his most intoxicated, he’d have been entirely convinced of the performance.

If they got out of this without any arrests, Enjolras considered recommending to Grantaire that he take to the stage.

He moved closer.

The guard stepped out of the shadows as Grantaire approached. Immediately he began chastising Grantaire, berating hm for being such a nuisance and thoroughly blowing his cover by threatening to take Grantaire bottle-and-all to the nearest police station. Enjolras didn’t want to see him arrested, but he couldn’t help but agree that Grantaire was a nuisance.

Grantaire gayly tucked his bottle into the guard’s buttoned, dirty coat and grabbed his hands, still singing his song. The guard shouted, and Grantaire shouted back — a musical medley of vulgar nonsense.

Enjolras was pulled closer and closer, drawn in by the spectacle.

It was enough to get the attention of the uniformed guards at the far end of the alley, where the little path opened into broader, better lit streets. They stared down at the three men at the corner — their cohort, and the two strangers. Grantaire practically grinned back at them as he swaggered, not noticing Enjolras. Everything about him, from his bearing to his tone, reeked of antagonistic disdain. It was as if he was goading them, daring them to come and deal with him.

The men quickly exchanged words, and one peeled away, heading down the alley towards them.

A flicker of irritation glittered in Grantaire’s watery blue eyes. He belted out a loud, commanding note — as though he were barking out a command. ‘Come,’ his voice insisted.

The second guard dragged his feet for a moment before lurching down the alley as well, following his companion.

Inside the café, Feuilly, Combeferre and Courfeyrac didn’t hesitate. The moment the second guard moved away, they were out the door and sprinting as silently as they were able away from the Musain. Feuilly’s boots thudded dully on the cobblestones, and Courfeyrac’s trousers crinkled, but only a cat in a distant window saw them depart.

Grantaire didn’t get a chance to look for them. Enjolras had slipped into the melée, and stopped directly in front of him. The sight of him caught Grantaire so off guard that his voice faltered and his song stopped.

“What are you doing?” Enjolras demanded.

Six hands descended on them — the undercover guard dragging Enjolras’s arms behind his back, and the two others half-tackling, half-pinning Grantaire between them.

“Enjolras!” Grantaire shouted.

Enjolras and the guards felt a cold dread pass through them like a sudden gust of wind. But it didn’t last. The guards angrily swore at them.

With Grantaire’s silence, Enjolras’s rage and frustration at his dark-haired ally seemed to peter out as well. It was still there, but it was only a vague shadow of what it had been.

Still, he glared at Grantaire in earnest, even as the guards pulled them around the corner and away from Musain.

Grantaire struggled to swallow around the lump of panic lodged in his throat. One of the guards kicked him roughly in the leg but the most he could do was grunt at the pain. Enjolras didn’t even seem to realise he was in trouble.

And he wouldn’t.

In his effort to protect his friends, Grantaire had fallen into the very situation that he’d dreaded since the day he met them.

His throat ached as he soundlessly whimpered.

He had options — half a dozen ways to save them from the mess he’d blindly dragged them both into. But calling them options or choices was a fallacy. They were nothing more than an illusion. They existed in the way that throwing a six-sided die will yield six possible outcomes.

He wasn’t subject to the whims of fate.

Alea non est.

The expression in his eyes was almost frantic as he coughed hard, clearing his throat. He opened his mouth.

“Grantaire!” Enjolras snarled.

Grantaire choked on air as he inhaled sharply.

Enjolras planted his feet against the ground and twisted in Grantaire’s direction. His bright, blazing eyes met Grantaire’s with a fierceness Grantaire had only seen once before — last year, in the heat of a fight between their friends and the police, during a riot.

Enjolras’s chest heaved with the strain of holding back the guard and maintaining eye contact. “Don’t,” he insisted. “Don’t do it again.”

Grantaire stared back at him.

There was so much clarity in his eyes, so much self-awareness mixed with that wholly familiar disappointment. Grantaire closed his mouth.

The guard holding Enjolras tried to punch him in the side — no easy feat while simultaneously holding him. One of the uniformed men considered letting Grantaire go — he wasn’t putting up a fight — to help his comrade.

He reached out for Enjolras just as Enjolras growled, “You have fists. Use them!”

Grantaire wrenched his arm free and slammed his fist into the distracted man’s jaw.

The next few minutes were absolute chaos. The man that Grantaire struck had toppled backwards. It wasn’t a hard hit, but Grantaire had caught him with an uppercut and the force of his teeth crashing together and his head snapping backwards had sent him reeling to the ground. The others were still confused — still disoriented by the spell they were vaguely under — but they tried to fight back. Grantaire had commanded them to be attentive guardsmen — that was their legitimate, given profession, and thus the music stuck with them more than it otherwise would have. They struggled and held out far longer than ordinary men.

Every act of magic had an equally negative pull to its positive intention.

Grantaire had some skill at boxing, but he was clutching the nearest lamp post for support by the time they’d laid out all three of their adversaries. Enjolras was upright, but panting.

Grantaire didn’t miss the very slight smile on Enjolras’s face.

But the young revolutionary hid it beneath an immediate insistence that they get away from the scene with all haste. Grantaire nodded.

Instead of sprinting down the street in the direction of his own home, Enjolras turned and walked towards Grantaire.

“What are you waiting for?” he demanded as Grantaire stared at him, unmoving.

“Where are you going?” Grantaire asked.

“Your home,” Enjolras replied, putting his hand on Grantaire’s shoulder and steering him back into the alley, towards his own apartment. “I think you have a story you’d like to tell me.”

Grantaire bowed his head and dragged his feet. He’d never witnessed an actual execution, but he was convinced he was walking to his own. His entire body felt numb, with the exception of of his shoulder.

He’d left his coat at Musain, but through his shirt he could feel fire in Enjolras’s palm.

As they walked — as Enjolras walked, and Grantaire trudged alongside — Enjolras’s hand briefly tightened in a gesture of gentle reassurance.


End file.
